Harper Grills Up Some Support

Photo Courtesy of the Guelph Mercury

Not to confuse the issue, but I actually like Stephen Harper. I like him in the same way I like George W. Bush. If Bush is the wacky neighbour you'd like to hang out with, whose Tim Taylor like ineptitude always has him getting into one kind of hijink or another, than Harper is Mr. Furley, the landlord that's constantly peeking around corners and misconstruing simple misunderstandings for something gay.

If there's one thing that keeps me put-off about Harper it's his forced allergic reaction to the press as if they were leapers. Contagious with the bubonic plague. And covered in slime. All right honestly, I sometimes think that Harper sees a gaggle of reporters at a scrum and thinks about the escape from the mall scene in Dawn of the Dead.

Witness friends, another example of the PM's quarantine treatment of the media at yesterday's barbecue in Kitchener. The last line of the Mercury article read: "The prime minister did not take questions from media, but did pose for pictures with the public after the barbecue."

Hm. That sounds kind of familiar:

"Journalists' movements were seriously controlled and monitored. Once members of the media had entered the venue, they were not allowed to step out only to come back in. That would have presented a problem if an incident had occurred among protesters while Harper was talking. Journalists could not stand on the sidelines to throw out questions when Harper walked by. They were asked to leave as soon as the speech was over. If they could not approach Harper, he would not have to confront them." - Lisa Varano, Guelph Mercury - March 2008

I made similar comments in my editorial in the Ontarion the following week. There's a pervasive Conservative attitude amongst some that the media is the enemy. Access means that journalists can take the words of politicians, turn them around and skewer them to mean the exact opposite right? We just hate Conservatives that much! I mean, as members of the "left-wing media" and the "media elite."

Varano called the area reporters HAD TO stand in as "the media pen," when I tell the story to friends and colleagues, I call it "The Black Media Square." I don't take pleasure in that. Considering that I've stood three feet away from Elizabeth May as she's given blood and I could have pantsed Jack Layton on no less than three separate occasions, is it too much to ask to be able to throw a question out to the head of my country when he comes to town. As for Dion, hey, at least I got a question in at the scrum. Hey, at least there was a scrum!

Let me be clear: I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy these games or having to think upon my Prime Minister in a negative fashion. As reporters, we have questions and he has answers. It's simple arithmetic.

And as for why he didn't come to Guelph, well, there's a tradition and president apparently that says the sitting Prime Minister does not visit a riding while it holds a by-election. An article in yesterday's Mercury put it best, saying, "If he is truly not interested in influencing the Guelph byelection, it would seem to make sense that he would steer clear of Kitchener as well - where presumably questions about the Guelph race could be raised - until after Sept. 8."